An old, familiar foe with a lot of recent success at home.
The Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles rivalry goes back a long ways, as these two teams met up for the first time in Atlanta’s initial season in the league. For a Falcons rivalry, this has been a fairly even matchup over the decades, albeit not in the games that count the most.
The Falcons are 15-21-1 all-time against the Eagles—the lone tie was what I can only assume to be a putrid 13-13 game back in 1970—but are (EDIT: I’m an idiot) 1-3 against them in the playoffs. The win came back in 1978, a 14-13 squeaker that represented not just the first playoff win in team history, but also the first postseason game period. Atlanta would win it on a 37 yard strike to Wallace Francis from Steve Bartkowski, making the Falcons briefly a glorious 1-0 all-time in postseason play.
Those losses include the crushing Keanu Neal knee game in 2018 (for the 2017 season) where the two defenses battled it out on a poor day for both offenses, a lopsided NFC Conference Championship Game loss to in Michael Vick’s finest year back in 2005 (for the 2004 season), and another lopsided loss following the promising 2002 season. We don’t have to talk about those games now that I’ve typed that out.
This series was a lot more even in the early years than it is now, with the Eagles winning four of their past five matchups against Atlanta, including their last three home games. This will be the first time the Falcons travel to Philadelphia since 2018, and a chance to reverse a one game skid.
Last Matchup
The infamous initial game of Arthur Smith’s coaching career in Atlanta. At the time, we were not overly optimistic about the state of the roster, but hoped the Falcons could come out strong under a new coach and show the offseason talk about contention wasn’t just blown smoke.
The Falcons did strike first, settling for a short Younghoe Koo field goal to take an early 3-0 lead. After Jalen Hurts hit DeVonta Smith for an 18 yard touchdown pass, the Falcons answered back with another short Koo field goal. The game was within grasp, even if the team wasn’t finishing drives. After Hurts and company petered out on the next drive, the Falcons had an opportunity to take the lead.
Instead, a drive that got past midfield was undone by a Matt Ryan intentional grounding call, and after another Eagles punt, three Mike Davis runs and a Jalen Mayfield penalty forced another punt. It was all downhill from there.
The Eagles capped off a long scoring drive with a pass from Hurts to Dallas Goedert, and then a Miles Sanders successful two point conversion to make it 15-6. After the half, the two teams traded inept drives until late in the third when Kenneth Gainwell scampered for an eight yard touchdown, making it 22-6. A lot of Atlanta tire spinning later, the Eagles poured 10 points on in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter to make it a 32-6 final, a stunning and embarrassing initial result for a new staff. Not that we’d know anything about that here in 2024, no sir!